Japans population crisis

Japan, one of the worlds most technologically advanced and powerful nations is facing a serious population crisis : they now have one of the lowest fertility rates in the world. Without a dramatic change in either the birthrate or its restrictive immigration policies, Japan simply won't have enough workers to support its retirees, and will enter a demographic death spiral. In this day and age its so surprising to hear about a government in crisis over population decline, so used to hearing about the problems of overcrowding and the growing population elsewhere. So why are Japan falling fatal to such a bizarre issue?

One of the main reasons for such a dramatic decline in the birth rate is directly correlated to the decline in relationships and marriage in Japan. It seems the Japanese are becoming less and less interested in dating and building families. The Japanese government is having to take desperate measures to counteract this by funding matchmaking and dating services to get more young people married and producing babies. Local officials arrange “konkatsu” parties where singles can meet and mingle. I find it very alarming that such an influential nation has reached a state where they need guidance and lessons on how to go about the most basic and natural social interactions.

But even more alarmingly its not only the government who are running schemes to encourage the locals to interact with one another. After reading an interview with Aoyama, a Japanese woman who ‘teaches’ the reclusive locals how to deal with social interactions I started to understand the full extent of Japans social issues. Aoyama says the sexes, especially in Japan's giant cities, are "spiraling away from each other" and moving towards the usual technological suspects ‘There clearly is a subset of Japanese youth who have withdrawn from dating. Instead, they focus on online porn and games like Nintendo's Love Plus, in which players conduct a relationship with an anime girlfriend.’ She spoke about two 20 something girls she interviewed about their sexual/ social lives. ‘smart phones in hand, they admit they spend far more time communicating with their friends via online social networks than seeing them in the flesh’.

And if they are not replacing their human relationships with cyber ones they're often opting out altogether and replacing love and sex with other urban pastimes or on the more extreme hand, cutting themselves off from the world completely- ‘Hundreds of thousands of young men are known as hikikomori, shut-ins who have no human contact and spend their days playing video games and reading comics in their parents' homes’

She believes ‘it's inevitable that the future of Japanese relationships will be largely technology driven. Japan has developed incredibly sophisticated virtual worlds and online communication systems. Its smart phone apps are the world's most imaginative." But she also believes that love and sex is very important part of society for more reasons than just the population crisis. Perhaps they need to escape into private, virtual worlds in Japan due to the fact that it's an overcrowded nation with limited physical space and perhaps the rest of the world is not far behind.

Reading up about Japan’s population crisis has really scared me. It seems like an all too literal prediction of the future for other nations. As nations get up to speed with Japans technology will their birthrate too decline? I think Japan providing the world with a glimpse into all of our futures. Many of the shifts are occurring in other advanced nations too. Across urban Asia, Europe and America, people are marrying later or not at all. Although other factors for example financial issues and such like are contributing, I do believe that it is mainly down to the effect of technology on japans youth. It is all starting to sound suspiciously like the maybe-not-so-scifi-after-all film ‘Her’ I went to see just weeks ago. Perhaps the films predictions are correct. Is our world going to be completely socially inept in a matter of years? Are the technological worlds we are all so caught up in disjointing us from the real and physical world that we live in?